Saifuddin Kumar Abdullah’s research while affiliated with Universiti Putra Malaysia and other places

Designing courses for unknown audiences is a very particular task which necessitates course designers to acquire new perspectives from which to see the issues (Dubin and Olshtin, 1988). Course development becomes more demanding especially if it is aimed at international students from different cultural and educational backgrounds. In fact, this is the situation at Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) in which 1,846 international postgraduates from 48 different countries are currently pursuing their master and doctorate degrees. Out of this number, nearly a minority of 15% is exempted from UPM English Placement Test if they hold an IELTS (6) or TOEFL (550) certificate. The rest of the candidates are required to register for a prescribed English course which meets six hours a week during a fourteen-week semester. To plan and prepare an appropriate curriculum for such a considerably variant population, the curriculum developers and course designers should primarily diagnose international postgraduates' needs and formulate course objectives so that they meet the audiences' needs (Taba, 1962). Moreover, longitudinal evaluation should be carried out by curriculum and program developers to determine whether their materials and programs continuously meet their students' requirements and expectations or not. To explore perceptions and expectations of UPM international postgraduates regarding their perceptions of the prescribed English course, the whole population of international postgraduates at UPM was emailed an online questionnaire to respond. The questionnaire initiates with a demographical section which is followed by a few yes/no questions to make sure whether a respondent has experienced the prescribed English course or not. The rest of the questionnaire is 22 statements based on a six-point scale (a) to explore perceptions of international postgraduates regarding their teachers, (b) to explore perceptions of international postgraduates regarding their prescribed English course, and (c) to explore international postgraduates' suggestions for the prescribed English course to meet their needs and expectations.

This is a descriptive design research which evaluating the content validity of a group guidance module for secondary school students. The purpose of this study is to proof that this module can really evaluate whatever data that it should (Mohd Majid Konting, 2004) and the module shows the high content validity value if it can fulfill five criteria which had been suggested by Russell in 1974. Three experts in this field were chosen to check and evaluate the module. The comments received from those experts will be used as guidance to do corrections and improve the module into the really good motivation module. This high score of the content validity proved that the module can really help the students in order to increase students' inner motivation as well as to be successful students just like the objectives stated.

In national perception, education is essentially for all. This is fundamental to all-round development, material and spiritual. It refines sensitivities and perceptions that contribute to national cohesion, a scientific temper and independence of mind and spirit—thus furthering the goals of socialism secularism and democracy enshrined in our constitution. The objective of the study focuses on achievement of children with learning disability in science. There are 5 null hypothesis tested in this research. The sample used in this study includes 35 children with learning disabilities in experimental group and 42 children with learning disabilities in control group. The different views taken on special education have ignited spark of controversies over segregating some children from the mainstream and providing them with extra opportunities. There are arguments for and against both special education and integrated education. Special education means the specifically designed instruction that meets the unusual needs of special children. It requires special materials, teaching, techniques, equipment and facilities. The design was an experimental research pre and post-test equivalent group. The research shows that there is no significant difference in all learning objective such as knowledge, comprehension and skill between control group and experimental group in the pre-test. This two sample groups also did not show any significant difference in the pre-test irrespective of gender, educational qualification of the teacher, years of experience of the teacher, parents' education, parents' profession, parents' income, type of management and type of school. On the other hand, for the post-test all the characteristics show that there are significant differences. This shows that there are effects on the treatment group in learning objective. Furthermore the experimental group showed significantly higher gain score than the control group with regard to the learning objective which comprises of knowledge, comprehension, application and skill.

This study is done through observation of the teaching and learning process in classrooms involving 183 Primary School Teachers and 241 Rural Secondary School Teachers. The main objectives of the study are to; (1) measure teachers' teaching status in Science and Mathematics subjects, (2) evaluate students potential in mastering the contents or in Science and Mathematics achievement, and to (3) determine the status of Computer Technology usage cum the teaching support materials in Science and Mathematics subjects. A total of 4410 primary school students and 4946 secondary school students are involved in the study by sitting for two types of Standard Tests for the primary schools, i.e. the Science and Mathematics while in the secondary students' case, 5 types of Standard Tests are implemented, i.e. Mixed Science, Modern Mathematics, Chemistry, Physics and Additional Mathematics. The primary schools are categorized in 7 types of schools, while the secondary schools on the other hand are categorized in 6 types of schools. The results of the study shows that 42.5 percent of primary school teachers and 50.8 percent of secondary school teachers failed in the English Language Proficiency Level Evaluation. This situation is critical as it directly affects the pedagogy and teaching efficiency using English as the teaching medium. The teachers teaching observation status through the researchers shows that the beginning of teacher's teaching is average (min=5.1), interaction between teachers and students are also average (min=5.2), interaction between students and teachers are poor (min=3.8), Computer Technology usage is at average level (min=5.7) and the English Language within teachers are average (min=5.5). Generally, the teachers' teaching status is poor (min=4.9;sp=1.8) and the level of Computer Technology usage as teaching support materials are at average level (min=5.7;sp=1.7). The results of the study shows that the PPSMI teachers possess average competency (min=5.3). The effectiveness in the teaching and learning of Science and Mathematics mainly relies on the teachers' command in the English language. Students in urban schools produced better achievement results compared to the students in rural schools based on 12 tested subjects tested, whereby students in rural schools are left behind in 10 subjects (except in Physics 1 and Chemistry 1) with the average mark difference of between 3.3 to 19.7. Through the whole study, students in secondary schools and primary schools in rural areas are behind in PPSMI.

This paper is a venture and an explanation towards recent leadership polls which has been an issue frequently debated within lower level leaders. Collected facts and evidences are one of the simple ethnographic study processes in a few subordinate leadership groups in the line of education management. The information is collected by a few series of chatting, socializing and assimilating facts and elaborations by unwary respondents who has stressed on some parts of their conversation repeatedly. The trustworthiness of the results is analyzed to through cross-sectional checking to standardize the results to be reported. Overall the leaders have a key performance index which fulfils the minimum needed level. The grudge based leadership involves frequent detection of leaders' weaknesses and minor mistakes as shown in the conceptual framework. Because of that, they always received new groups who supported objectives such as mismatch, suppression, denying of other people's rights, acting roughly, providing stress, hating, neglecting, rejecting, discrimination, causing trouble and isolating others without reason. This environment became dominant to the point of causing dissatisfaction within the lower level leaders and officers. This practice implies the existence of interactional understanding gaps which are unhealthy as these leaders are the ones who will succeed to the present leadership. This situation has also created a new space for new leaders. A special committee has to be set up to detect the professional leadership bias through mechanisms of psychometric and personality evaluation for determining the continuity from the aspects of practice, privacy and effectiveness in leadership management.

Generic skills are the general skills, qualities, knowledge, abilities and traits a person should possess to succeed in one's studies and career. These skills are not specific but are skills which cut horizontally across all industries and vertically across all job from entry level to chief executive officer. It is beginning to be broadly accepted that the contemporary workplace is characterized by continuous change. One impact of the transformation is that lifelong learning has been identified as a means of developing human capital. It is widely believed that such dimensions of performance as learning, innovation and enterprise can be enhanced by placing greater emphasis on generic skills in teaching and learning process. The objectives of the study are to produce human capital with "first class mentality", identify the generic skills required to produce human capital with "first class mentality", incorporate the generic skills in the process of teaching and learning, assess the development of generic skills and discuss the barriers in teaching and learning generic skills. There are several reasons for the current perceived importance of the generic skills, the primary one being employment and industry-driven. To incorporate generic skills in teaching and learning, there are two approaches can be implemented that is diffusion model approach and infusion model approach. The other reasons are the need to remain competitive, need to acquire new knowledge in. a knowledge-based world and the need to socialize and interact in an inter-dependent world.